


They Didn't Prepare Us For This

by Gracefully



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5538056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gracefully/pseuds/Gracefully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Then, it is cold and bleak and you are all so tired. At this point, it seems like bragging to say how grateful you are that you’re alive. You begin to wonder why God didn’t just finish you off in the frozen hellhole. Still, there are little things. The curl of his hair. The sparkle in his eyes when you say his name. The smell of him on your jacket. The look on his face when he’s asleep and the sun is coming up and he is not drunk. The fact that you two make one another happy. These are the things that keep you fighting past what you think you can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Didn't Prepare Us For This

They didn't prepare us for this at Toccoa. They taught us how to kill men and how to dodge enemy fire, they taught us how to jump from planes and hit the ground running. They taught us how to properly dig in and wait, and they taught us to only trust the two guys on either side of us.

They didn't tell us what to do when a fellow soldier smiles at you, all soft and hesitant, and because you don't know how to respond, you smile back. They taught you to lock your elbow around a man’s throat, the exact places to stab to render his heartbeat inert. They didn’t teach us what to do when you want to run your fingertips across pale skin of a fellow soldier in the moonlight.

You tell yourself the butterflies are from your lack of training in this department. You've flirted before, with girls back home, but this feels different. More real, somehow.

Back at officer’s training, they taught you how to keep your men together and be a calm leader in the face of incredible stress. They taught us how to read maps and decode letters and how to lead a patrol. They didn’t teach you how to respond when you find another officer drinking, and instead of reprimanding him (you two have done this several times, after all), you want to kiss the alcohol off of his lips.

You move on to Toccoa. They give you a group of men. You are in charge of them. Some are only six or so months younger than you. They look up to you, you are a good leader. They teach you what it means to be a good leader, what it means to put the individual aside and focus on the whole, the long term.

You’re jumping out of planes and you are flying. The sky is full of men, all flying to the green grass below them. You are a bird, and you feel the wind in your hair and you know how to land because they have taught you this as well. Later that night, he asks you if you want to go for a walk, just the two of you, and judging by the feeling in your gut, you’d say you’re just leaping out of that plane.

The moon is bright but the path is dark and he slips his hand into yours and you are flying for the second time that day.

The Day of Days is only a little ways away. You realize that your men would literally die for you, they were almost shot for pulling strings and getting you in charge. You’re overwhelmed by a feeling of leadership, just as they told you it would happen.

Meanwhile, he tells you about Chicago, about how he’ll take you there. You hope, you pray that night, harder than you’ve ever prayed for anything, that you’ll get out of the war alive and well and see this city with him.

You say goodbye to him, not really a goodbye, more of a ‘see you later’ but there’s that tension between you two. When no one is around, you press a quick kiss to his cheek. A promise. His startled yet satisfied look fuels you for hours and hours to come.

Then, you’re flying through the air but you feel like Icarus, wings ablaze and a roiling ground of death awaiting him. You land and all you can think about are the men, who’s fighting, where you are, you can’t think about anything else, you can’t afford to, and yet--

_I can’t lose him_. The thought occupies you for hours. You know he’s two planes over, you know you didn’t land in the right place. And then you’re walking down the road and he comes the other way, riding a tank, and you think that that might be the most beautiful image you’ve ever seen.

That night, as you two wander the streets, you pull him into a dark corner and kiss him properly, for the first time. He tastes like alcohol and dirt and something you can’t describe.

Later, he is hit in the helmet and for a moment you wonder if breathing is possible. He goes down, a shot to the head, and you’ve seen that too many times, you’ve seen the spray of blood and brains that results. The image of his face, wrecked by a bullet, is enough to make you feel sick. He’s okay though, and you want to cry, you’re so thankful. That night, you run your hands over his face and through his hair, trying to find some place a bullet could be hiding. Somehow, the closeness of the situation baffles you. By all accounts, he should be dead. He is miraculously alive and you thank your lucky stars for it.

The war trudges on, and somehow you are both still alive, both whole and that, you find, is all you can ask for. They taught you how to huddle close when it's cold, but they didn't tell you what to do when he reaches over and grabs your hand. You tell yourself it's only to keep the extremities warm, nothing else. However, you are the one to lean over and press your forehead to his, you are the one to press your frozen, chapped lips to his.

You huddle close and cling to one another at night and pray to make it out of there alive. Nothing much happens between you two, compared to what the men talk about doing to their wives and girlfriends, but you feel very close to him, your fellow soldier.

Somehow, you two survive. You two sit in the back of a Jeep, dazed and amazed that you are alive. You lean into his shoulder, a constant pressure, to make sure you aren’t just dreaming.

Then, it is cold and bleak and you are all so tired. There are beds, and you two share one, curled around each other. You don’t talk too much, there’s really nothing to say. At this point, it seems like bragging to say how grateful you are that you’re alive. You begin to wonder why God didn’t just finish you off in the frozen hellhole. Still, there are little things. The curl of his hair. The sparkle in his eyes when you say his name. His hand in your hair, holding you close. The smell of him on your jacket. The look on his face when he’s asleep and the sun is coming up and he is not drunk. The fact that you two make one another happy. These are the things that keep you fighting past what you think you can.

The war ends. Oddly enough, it ends and you don’t know what to do with yourself. He confronts you, offers you a home and a job and implied in his words is him, all of him, fully offering himself to you, and only you. You’ve never been good at turning down deals. Especially when you’ve wanted this for five years.

They didn’t teach you what to do when your fellow soldier offers you a symbolical wedding ring, but you’re a leader, and you know how to take action. There are tears in his eyes as you kiss him silly, amazed at how you two are whole and alive and miraculously alive.


End file.
